I'm your host, Jester. I've been an EVE Online player for about six years. One of my four mains is Ripard Teg, pictured at left. Sadly, I've succumbed to "bittervet" disease, but I'm wandering the New Eden landscape (and from time to time, the MMO landscape) in search of a cure.You can follow along, if you want...

Thursday, May 5, 2011

-1 Jester

I'll make this quick, and I will be including as little drama as I possibly can.

I've decided to unsubscribe my four EVE Online accounts. Over the next few months, I'll be wrapping up training plans and letting each account lapse. Since I'm sure you'd rather get your EVE commentary from someone who's actually playing EVE, that means that I'll also be letting this blog lapse.

You might ask why, and it's a fair question. My reasons apply to me, and I don't intend that they reflect on anyone else. If you're having fun in EVE, that's great and more power to you. But the short answer is that I'm not having fun any more. Most of the things that I enjoyed about the game are dead or dying, and are being replaced by things that I'm not all that interested in. I'm also suffering under a bit of a handicap that's unique to my situation. I've been struggling with it and trying to ignore it for more than a year now, but it's time to face it. More specifically, four factors are coming together, all at the same time. One or two would be manageable, but all four happening at the same time have drained my enthusiasm for the game and would require more work to solve than seems reasonable or fun.

First, since it affects everything else I'm going to mention, the handicap: I live in California. EVE is simply unfriendly to those that live in California. My prime play time starts at 0200 at the earliest, and often, it's more like 0330. Most ops are wrapping up or are long over by this time. Frequently, there are fewer than 18000 people logged into the game when I play, the vast majority in Empire. As a result, I've spent a ton of time playing EVE solo. Problem is (as I'll mention), a lot of solo pursuits are gone from the game.

The four factors:
1) Without getting into specifics, both my corp and my alliance are going through a rough patch. A lot of the people that were active in my time zone have either left the corp or are not active in EVE for personal reasons. LAWN is one of the top 50 alliances in terms of size in the game, with almost 850 toons... but it's common for there to only be four or five people on Teamspeak by the time I get on-line.

2) With the sanctum/haven nerf, there's a lot less ISK moving around the EVE economy. This affects me indirectly because my main income stream for more than a year has been production of T1 and T2 mods, rigs, bubbles, and the like. And right now, it looks like my income from this source is going to be cut in half due to the much-reduced amount of ISK that's chasing the increasing number of products on the market.

3) Small gang PvP -- which was my first love in EVE -- appears to be all but dead in 0.0 space. Small pick-up roaming gangs that you could log into EVE and X up for with 20 minutes notice have been strangled by blob warfare, weeks-long deployments behind enemy lines (and the planning and logistics that go with that), and super-organized fleet doctrines where not only is your role and ship chosen for you, so is your fitting.

4) Virtually every solo pursuit in EVE -- which I'm driven to due to the late US TZ -- has been systematically nerfed and replaced with pursuits that require larger groups. L4 missions and sanctums/havens are two examples, replaced by WH ops and Incursions, respectively. The less said about the state of solo PvP in EVE, the better. Needing a larger group would be fine... if I could put together a larger group.

As I said, any one of these four factors, I could compensate for alone. I could find new income streams to compensate for #2, for instance. It would be a lot of work over several months to do it, but I could do it. But all four hitting at once?

There are also two additional external factors that are draining off the enthusiasm I once had for EVE:
1) Sov warfare is simply not as fun as I thought it would be. I knew tower and structure ops were going to be a part of it. But increasingly, if you don't have a cap or super-cap, the tower op fleets don't want you, or at best relegate you to boring support roles. CCP's increasing cluelessness about their own game in this aspect is really starting to wear me down. If they don't like blobs, why do they keep implementing changes to the game that encourage blobs of larger and larger size? I must be the only person that's ambivalent about time dilation, because all I can see happening as a result of it are 2500-person blobs instead of 1500-person ones.

2) The ratio of veterans to newbies in EVE continues to rise thanks to EVE's inability to attract new players. We've seen this in both the stagnant subscription numbers and the average number of SP EVE toons have, which is rising rapidly. But the vets are doing a great job themselves in driving off the newbies. The level of nastiness in EVE is rising at an astonishing rate. Granted, EVE is a dark, cold, unforgiving universe, blah-blah-blah. Fine. But people are taking it to extremes that are troubling... even dangerous. It takes no time at all for a calm forum or Twitter conversation to turn ugly... often disgustingly so. DDOS attacks on enemy Teamspeak servers or enemy supercap pilots are now commonplace. And now a DDOS attack has been launched on EVE News 24 that's kept it all but inaccessible for weeks. This. Is. Wrong. And I'm honestly no longer interested in being part of it.

So, I'm out.

A few questions that I'm sure will come up:
1) Can you haz my stuff? No. I'm going to leave the accounts idle for a couple of years and see how I feel then. I'm still very interested to see what comes out of Incarna, so I will probably revisit after it's fully in place. I will probably also revisit if my living arrangement changes. EVE was a lot more fun when I lived in Connecticut a few years ago. But in a year or two, if I find that I'm still disinterested, then I'll find some few-months-old toons struggling to do L3 missions in their Drakes and I will give them my stuff.

2) Aren't you worried about falling behind in SP if you do come back? No. Ripard has 50M SP. My other three mains have 40M each. I'll be continuing their skill trains until their respective subscriptions run out, buying a few PLEXes to synchronize those dates (which looks like it'll be early August or so). If I do decide to come back, it will be because there are enough new EVE players that 40-50M SP are still worthwhile.

3) What happens to the blog? I won't be updating it any further with EVE info, but I'll leave it up because I know there are a number of posts on it that are pointed to in various forums. And once I move to a new MMO, I might very well start blogging about that. Jester's Trek may continue somewhere other than New Eden, after all. ;-) There are several MMOs coming in both the short and long term that I'm interested in.

4) What are you going to play now? I'm going to start with World of Tanks and Global Agenda, I think. I have friends playing both. And both have the instant-on, small-gang PvP thing going for them that drew me to EVE in the first place. There are also a couple of MMOs coming in 2012 that I'm very interested in, notably Kingdoms of Amalur.

Comments on the blog are still active, but I've switched them to moderated. If you've read this far and you are inclined to reply with some variant of "cry more, noob", don't bother. I will delete your comment without reading it or posting it. However, if you have thoughtful comments that you want to put out there, go for it.

Only just discovered your blog a couple weeks back, but enjoyed reading all your entries. Sad to see you go.

As for WoT and GA, I have played both, and found them to be quite fun for short stints of instant action, but I fear they don't offer the same depth that most MMOs, and especially EVE, do. I hope you enjoy them all the same.

Am newly back to EVE myself after about a six-month burnout vacation, and discovered your blog for the first time while updating my own blog roll. You quickly became one of my favorite EVE bloggers, and I'm sorry to see you go.

I expect you'll be back -- it seems like everybody comes back -- and I look forward to the day.

Thanks for all the nice comments. Happily, I've only deleted one, and that one was just someone letting me know about a bug in one of the links (which I fixed).

I really enjoyed writing about EVE and was in no danger at all of running out of topics (or ship fittings, or kills, or quotes).

It's just the *playing* EVE part that's becoming really un-fun. I have to admit, there's a small part of me that wonders if someone will respond with a comment of "Wait! We do lots of small-gang stuff and we're mostly in the midwest U.S. and on the west coast..." ;-)

I live on the west coast too and I've grown accustomed to being too early or too late to ops. My wh buddy also quit a little while ago and I had to rethink my strategy. I do enjoy solo activities like mining and I use a number of toons, so I keep myself busy. Let's see for how long.

Being a CA resident myself... I can feel the pain. Often ops will be wrapping up either as I log in, or log off. There have been times I've been able to log in mid-day and I'll find triple the number of people online in my alliance, but in my TZ it tends to be a ghost-town.

Hopefully you find enjoyable things outside Eve, and maybe someday things will improve enough that you feel compelled to return.

Sorry to see you go. Been reading the blog since you started it up. Definitely my favorite blog by a wide margin. I do understand where you're coming from. I live in Washington State and have had EXACTLY the same feelings/experiences. I've only been playing for 2 years, so I have plenty of time yet to reach the same conclusion. Besides, I still have wormhole life to try out. Hope you do come back, someday. Farewell.

Damn, have really been enjoying your blog Jester - one of the best EVE blogs out there, will be a shame to see you go.

Only thing I can add... have you considered joining a corp/alliance that lives in NPC 0.0? no sov hassles to think about, gang sizes are generally around the 5-15 mark, also decent solo opportunities usually too.

A change is as good as a holiday, maybe you just need to leave Sov 0.0 for a little while and see if it re-ignites the passion?

Always disappointing to see a player go. I couldn't help but find several things in your outlook that I couldn't disagree with more, however.

Corp/Alliance Trouble? Either find an organization that works better for you, or do what it takes to turn your organization around.

ISK is harder to make? I've never found being a rich player necessary to have fun. If I have 15m ISK in my wallet, I know where my next ship is coming from. Anything else is just padding.

Small gang pvp? A couple of hours ago I was out in a 3 man gang roaming in lowsec. After attacking a pair of players in a belt, killing and podding one while the other got away, we were eventually caught by another 6 man gang and destroyed. I have no trouble finding fights against small gangs or solo on a daily basis. That pretty much covers your contention that solo pursuits are all going away as well.

Sov warfare isn't fun? Have you considered doing something else? I don't particularly like Sov warfare either, and have never regretted leaving it behind.

Not enough new players? Well...I'm not the FNG for nothing. Our Alliance's new recruits usually have about 5m SP. Just had someone apply who had been playing about a week. We take them all and show them just have much fun and how viable PvP is regardless of your SP. I think it's more likely that you've insulated yourself with other veterans and are simply not encountering the constant stream of new players that are entering the game.

As to the nastiness of EVE...you make some valid points, but I don't really surround myself with those bad vibes. Most of the people I interact with day-to-day are the nicest people you'd ever meet, and I'm an ebil piwate.

I hope you don't take this as just "kry moar nub", but I felt that it needed to be said. The health of EVE won't benefit from new players reading your post and believing everything you've said here as the Gospel truth. I hope you approve this comment to allow some constructive counterpoints to what you've said here. If not, I hope you've at least read what I've said and considered it yourself. Hopefully you're able to take a breath and view EVE with a fresh set of eyes in a few months or a year. Best of luck in whatever you do next.

@FNG: Not disagreeing with any of your points in particular. Each single thing you say is valid. I just don't feel like doing all of them at once. As a matter of fact "start my own corp and actively recruit west coast players" was a possibility I strongly considered.

Then net of it is that doing all of that all at the same time sounds a lot like work, not fun.

i agree with the lack of solo content. i have 10 accounts and im becoming bored with the game myself. iv played for 5 years and pretty much been solo the whole time. i shouldnt really need 10 accounts to do things solo. im close to quitting myself.

Very sorry to see you go. Feel very much like you and could sort of see between the lines a bit and sadly not surprised by your decision. Or maybe it was more me projecting what I felt onto what you wrote, and seems we are at a similair stage in game.Your blog is/was excellent. So hope you enjoy your next experiences and maybe one day we'll see you back in EVE one day.

I agree that the game in nullsec has turned decidedly unfun. I don't know that CCP understands how the anom nerf adversely affected the nullsec game. I haven't run an anom in over a year yet I feel their loss in so many ways.

Being in NC, I thought there would be plenty of sov warfare. But it has turned into the most boring thing in the game. There really isn't a need to fight. Whoever shows up with fewer caps just leaves. The only fighting is trying to catch some stragglers who hit the wrong button or missed the order on voice comms. People say they worry EVE will become supercaps online. It already is!

I'm with you, the game is no longer fun for me. I use ISK to keep my 4 accounts training but I only log in 1 sometimes to watch developments while I play WoT and X3.

My only question to you is: You just ran for CSM--something that would require considerable dedication to EVE. Is there a number 5 (and probably the BIGGEST) reason missing from your list...sour grapes for losing?

I've played the game since beta, and I once Dominion came out I knew it was too true to be true. I quit, just for the simple fact that amount of ISK that is being offered, would eventually lead CCP to curtail it.

I can't blame you for leaving, it's a game after all and it's supposed to be enjoyable. Though, I'll miss your lovely entertaining commentary, I hope good fortune to you sir.

@mordis: It's a fair question. Had I won, CSM members have much less time to actually *play* EVE and I probably wouldn't have had time to notice the issues that have broken the game for me. This is possibly a reason that several of the CSM5 members quit EVE either during their terms or almost immediately afterward.

As it was, the CSM run itself sucked up a good deal of my EVE time and probably delayed my noticing a couple of the factors. In particular, running for CSM is a highly engaging solo activity in EVE, and I'd been looking for solo activities. ;-)

The CSM run also exposed me to a lot more of EVE's nastier side. I got called all sorts of vile names during the run, for one example, both to my face and behind my back. And I found that I got primaried a lot more in small- and medium-gang fights when I *could* play EVE, for another. It's easier to enjoy EVE and have fun when you're relatively anonymous.

While I'm sad to see you go, I have to agree with FNG here. It's like you are describing a completely different game than I play.

I started playing Eve this year, and I exclusively engage in solo pvp. I actively seek out players as new as me to fight, because I largely can't compete with older players (yet).

Despite that, I have not found there to be a shortage of targets. There are plenty of new players around, they just probably don't hang out in 0.0.

Equally, I've found New Eden to be a pretty awesome place filled with pretty awesome people. People have gone out of their way to be helpful to a new player like me. It's been fantastic.

So, it seems I'm engaging in solo pvp, encountering new players, and meeting cool people. Oh, and I have no reliable source of income, but somehow seem to manage. It just seems very different from what you are experiencing.

Now, I'm not trying to tell you that your experiences recently have been wrong (and some, such as your time zone, I can't comment on), but your experiences are not all of New Eden.

You clearly need a change of pace, and that's valid. But remember that you can change an awful lot while still remaining within the game. That's part of what makes Eve a fantastic mmo.

Jester - Discovered your blog a mere 3 days ago and began catching up just in time to see you leave. :(I also live on the West Coast but my main playing time is on the weekends where I'm on all day, hence no shortage of people to roam with.Judging by all the comments you have a very good blog with lots of fans. Very sorry to see you leave, but you have to do what's right for you. Good luck, sir.

This has fast become one of my favorite blogs, and I do hate to see you go. Were I still on the West coast, I would gladly do the heavy lifting of starting a corp that catered to West coasters. As it stands I may be moving back next next year but that doesnt do you much good now. Heck, I play late enough on the East coast that it basically amounts to primetime on the West coast but I just joined a corp and I owe them some quality contribution before I go down another road.

I have to say I was eagerly anticipating the next part of your series on L4 missioning. Any chance that will see the light of day before you call it for good?

Again, really enjoyed your blog and I wish you the best in whatever gaming endeavors you attempt.

PS Im the anon that sent you the mail ingame about a week ago or so. ;)

Jester, I've only been reading your blog for a few weeks and was disappointed to see this post in my RSS reader. I enjoyed your writing and wish you would stick around just so I could read your blog more.

However, as "industrialist" myself, I have seen reduced demand for my goods which are building blocks in a production chain.

Hey, sad to see you go.I'd try to get you to join my corp but you already did. SG is still rolling :).

I would love to disagree with you but I am facing the same issue. Mine is due to the inability to contribute only a couple hours a night and that eliminates much of eve's content. This huge blob warfare is just killer when constant. Occasional is great but not all the time.

I know how you feel about the time zone. It’s not my time zone but my work schedule. I am leaving for work at the time most ops start. I wonder sometimes why I keep playing. I think it's because it's so hard to leave the characters I've put all this time in. But I do find myself driving tanks often these days, and thanks to you I'm checking out Global Agenda.

And in response to one of your comments above, I am in a WH corp and we have mostly midwest players (our most active group) and we would love to have an experienced guy to help us out. We have some pilots in your skill range but with wildly different experience, ie little to no PvP. Perhaps teaching and guiding a little WH corp could be fun for you.

Hey Jester, sad to see you go--I think had you been elected to CSM, your opinion about things would only get worse. ;)

Having stepped away from EVE some weeks ago (even though my account remains active for a few more weeks), I don't miss the game. It's a relief not to feel obligated to log in anymore. But...I do miss regular conversation with people I got to know via EVE/CSM and so it is hard to disengage completely--your blog was one of my continuing-to-lurk waypoints. ;)

Have fun, whatever you choose to do. It was a pleasure to get to know you during your CSM run.

I know you probably have a lot of emotional equity in your current corporation, but times like this can be a blessing in disguise. Consider it an opportunity to try out something different like Red Vs Blue or Faction Warfare.

Perhaps put some effort into community building, lending a hand to EVE University or simply spending time in rookie systems helping rookies come to grips with flying spaceships and getting blown up? It may not seem like your cup of tea right now, but the exposure to fresh players might help relieve the symptoms of "bittervet syndrome."

I'm in CA, too. Perhaps we should form a "West Coast EVErs" corp. Or something. ;-)My job keeps me busy quite a bit during the spring-summer-fall (USFS Fire), so perhaps that's why I'm nowhere near burnout. Also I'm nowhere near the "BTDT" that you are in this game.Personally, I've learned a metric fuckton from your writings here -- you're one insightful dude and I'm sad to see you go.In the end though, you gotta do what's right for you.

Going to miss your blog posts. I've really enjoyed reading this blog over the last couple of months.

I'll echo what a few others have said, it sounds like maybe you need a new corp and a change of scenery within EVE, if/when you return. Who knows maybe the new corp recruitment tool in CQ will be just what you need to find the right match?

Yes, I quite agree with your third bullet point there. Back in the day when the player peak was 14,000 or so a 50 man gang was considered large, and most of the time people roamed in gangs of <20. It was a real blast.

Part of the reason I left null-sec was because of the mandatory fits, too. I understand the function, but that just isn't fun for me.

Well, I am disappointed - I was very much enjoying your blog. And it was kinda cool to be "comment of the week" once. But I wish you all the best, and hope you find that ideal PVP game you're looking for. If you do, put up a post here so we can go check it out! Me, I'm hooked on the space genre, and Eve is still the best game for me so far, so I'm sticking around a bit longer. But I am noticing how many vets are leaving and my time may come soon.

I don't know if it's the same in other MMOs, but after you play for a while and get to know people and recognize others, when they start leaving on a regular basis it's cause to really pause and think about why. Is there a limit to what the game can offer, and you eventually reach that limit, regardless of how complex and rich the game is? Maybe. I don't know. It's curious to see people leaving like they are these days though.

All the best to you, and I'll keep an eye open here and perhaps we'll see you blogging on other topics.

2.5 years dedicated to this game and I am at the same point, my second account sub ran out today. Certainly not the longest run of the people I know in the game, but I am slowly seeing the people I have fun with drop out and disappear. I have been playing some WOT, but it is just a pickup game. I am feeling rather sad, it seems silly to feel this way about a spaceship game but for two years it was my hobby, my life outside of RL. I have enjoyed this blog, thanks for sharing. I will keep an eye on it to see what you get up to.

Mule left too, so the number of good EVE blogs is decreasing. It's depressing. I'm getting the impression of a general decline. It wasn't really EVE that made EVE great, it was the people of EVE. And now it's great_people_of_eve--;

Well,ware to start.I play eve I have only one account that ive had for over 6 years now I live in northern california so I fully understand the point of time zone ishue.Currently ive just topped 105 milion SP but I enjoy the game still I recrute and help new players if they ask for help in local Id have love to have ben able to chat and exchange ideas with a player such as your self.One of these times you check back in on the game drop me a line my game name is GREAT SWORDone of the founding members of the Roving guns inc. corp before it began a presence in eve we started as a Clan in Heavy Gear 1 made by Activision.Its players like your self that make games like these more interesting hope you reconsider your decision sincerly GREAT SWORD Fleet admiral Purifying Flame reborn.

I know I'm late to this post (and blog), but I just had to drop a comment echoing the sentiments of so many before me. New Eden has lost a great deal by your departure. This blog is easily the best Eve blog of the many, many I read. Your views are always insightful, intelligent, detailed, well written, and fun to read.

I see that you're still posting Eve commentary from time to time, so hopefully you'll continue to do so (though your Perpetuum series was a great read and I enjoy reading any and all of your posts, Eve related or not).

I also want to say that in my view you would have made a wonderful CSM rep and I'm sad to see you weren't voted in.

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